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July 1, 2009
Don't squat with your spurs on.
 It
was Carl's birthday — and not just any
birthday. This was the big three-oh!
Omygod! As traumatic as it may
have been for him, it was equally a source of reflection for me.
 I can remember, like it was yesterday, thinking that 30 was sooo old, and now I
have a 30 year old son! And what's even more profound is that I am almost
twice that age!
Wow, where did all that time go?
We went out for a meal to celebrate this momentous occasion with family and
friends. This is the present I got for him. It is a metal sculpture
made from nuts and bolts and other assorted hardware of a guy smashing his
computer. I can relate. We are both in the computer field and I
thought it was cool and something I would like.
Shhh... Do I detect the pitter-patter of tiny feet? Don't tell anyone that I told you but there is a rumor going around
that I am going to be a granddad again. Carl and Stacy expecting in
September. Stay tuned...
 I am pleased to see
that Craig has been keeping an online journal of his adventures on the Great
American Road Trip. I gave him a camera for a graduation present and he has been
putting it to good use — he has posted some
really great
photos.
If you have not seen his blog yet, click on the following link and check it out:
http://craig-stanley.blogspot.com/
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
 Tasha
has also been on an adventure — down on Carol’s horse farm. I have been spending
quite a long time away from home on business these past few weeks. The
only good news out of being stuck in a hotel in Connecticut is that I have
finally found the time to update this blog.
 During that time, Carol has been looking after Tasha for me. Tasha
loves it there with Carol’s two dogs and all the horses. She has become a
farm dog.
Her favorite pastime, which was shown to her by Little Boy (a Jack Russell
terrier), is to jump and splash in a pond to make the frogs shriek and jump.
There is also much mud in and around the pond, which she also enjoys enormously.
She is pictured here lying in it.
She needed, and received, a bath after that only to go and do it all over again.
 So what does our company
name mean? (The name that I am not going to say but is shown here in the
logo on the left.) We wanted the type of business to be part of the name so that
accounts for the second word. But what of the first word?
“The name”, often appended with the word “Valley” is a geographic region that is
well known to residents of the area. It gives us both a local connection
and also implies a certain size to the company. Right now, we only aspire
to be that size but we believe it creates the right impression.
 Another aspect is that there are other related, well established and well
respected organizations that also use “the name”. Some of their logos are shown
here.
It's a very powerful name and we just kind of slip right in there with them.
Many people think they have heard of us before. Our company name is “recognizable” and easily remembered by people. We already have one client who
liked the name and chose us in part because of it.
Another neat thing is that it shows up great in
the search engines when folks are looking for these services in the
aforementioned geographic region, especially if they include MA or Massachusetts
in the keywords.
 We were very pleasantly surprised to find that no one else had claimed either
the company name or the website domain.
June 15, 2009
Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
 I
guess the time has come to reveal what our business is all about.
It’s … it’s … it’s a home care agency! This is our logo on
the right. There, so now you know. ‘Bye!
Oh, alright, I will give you some more info...
What exactly is a home care
agency you say to yourself? Well, for starters, it is nothing to do with
taking care of homes. It is everything to do with providing in-home,
non-medical, personal care to the elderly, disabled and those recovering from
illness or surgery. I did not lie when I told you it was an ambitious project.
Have no fear, you can rest assured that neither of us will actually provide the
personal care ourselves. We employee people who are trained and have a
talent for that line of work. Our role is to find the right people in the
right places at the right time when someone is in need of their services.
And that task is not without its challenges.
Here's a little about the environment in which we are launching
this venture.
We expect that most of our clients will be the elderly.
The good news is
that advances in medical care are allowing people to live longer. The
flipside of the coin is that as we age many of us will suffer from a physical or
mental condition that will limit our ability to perform everyday tasks. In
fact, one sobering report I read claimed that MOST of us will experience
some form of impairment in our later years. Yikes, say it ain’t so!
The elderly are the fastest growing segment of the population at the moment and
will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
As the elderly population increases, so does the need for services that offer
them assistance. This trend will be
exacerbated in no small measure by the baby boomers.
The baby boomer generation is a term
used to describe those who were born during the post-World War II baby boom
between 1946 and 1964.
The oldest of the boomers are only in their early sixties and the youngest
are still in their forties. One boomer turns 50 every 18 seconds.
Another turns 60 every 7 seconds. Including me, the baby boomers are 78 million strong!
"Talkin’ ’bout My Generation"
  The baby boom has been likened to a pig in a python. The idea is that the
boomers are a demographic bulge that is remodeling society as it passes through
it by the sheer weight of its numbers.
First, they put pressure on hospital maternity units when they were born.
Then they overflowed the public school system, leading to record construction,
overcrowded classrooms, and sometimes double shifts of classes. They gave
a huge boost to college enrollment, and they created an "echo boom" of births
when they reached child-bearing ages.
 
Now they are getting older and are starting to trickle into the burgeoning
seniors boom.
I think that in about 10 to 20 years that trickle will become a raging torrent
that could well be a crisis in the making when eldercare services are stretched
beyond capacity. Perhaps tsunami would be a more appropriate metaphor.
No, we don't plan to be in the business in 20 years but I think this trend is to
the advantage of both our short and long-term goals. (Unless, of course,
we happen to need those services ourselves!)
 There is also a
movement afoot to shift certain types of care away
from expensive hospitals and nursing homes and into the patients’ own homes, which is a
far more cost-effective solution.
The average annual cost of a private room in a
nursing home in Massachusetts is $107,310 right now (much more in Boston).
Ten years from now that same room is projected to cost $174,797! In-home
care services are a fraction of the cost.
 I also believe that most people
would prefer the comfort and familiar surroundings of their own homes to a room in a
facility.
The burden of care giving in the home usually falls on family members.
This includes those looking after elderly parents, who often have to take care
of their own children as well as work for a living (the so-called "sandwich"
generation). This is where we come in by providing those care giving
services. The personal homecare services are as much of a benefit to the
family members as they are to the patients themselves.
Phew!
That's a lot of heavy stuff (man) and is probably quite enough for one day.
One other thing, when people search for our services, I do
not want this blog to appear in the search results so I will not make any direct
reference to the company name or provide a link to the website. Instead, I
will post images containing the relevant information.
This is the website address (clicking on it won’t work; you will have to type it
in):
We are an actual corporation and the name of the company is shown in the logo
above.
The first part of the name might look a little strange; however, there
is method to the madness. I will tell you about it next time.
June 9, 2009
You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going,
because you might not get there.
School's
out for summer...and Craig has taken off with his friend Emily on the Great
American Road Trip! The trip sounds pretty good
— except that I would have allowed about twice
the time. Still, it is a great adventure and something I would have liked
to have done at his age.
Come
to think about it, I might still do it one day but without that camping thing
— I like my creature comforts.
I have encouraged him to create a blog — an
online journal — of his trip so that friends
and family can follow his journey and see what he is up to. I don't know
if he will do it but he has made the first step and created a blog. I hope
he maintains it and posts lots of photos.
To find out more about Craig and Emily's Excellent Adventure go to this
address:
http://craig-stanley.blogspot.com.
June 1, 2009
Latine loqui coactus sum.
June already! Time flies whether you're having fun or not.
 We have been so
wrapped up in our business venture that I have barely had a chance to update
this blog. There has been so much to do in the planning and preparation
that it has consumed most of our free time. But there have been some
positive developments in the short time since we got our license so maybe all
the hard work is starting to pay off.
 I have
deliberately refrained from saying too much about the business here because I
did not want to jinx it.
Now that we are out there in the public eye I can
reveal what we are up to. No time right now though so I will have to keep
you in suspenders and tell you all about it next time. :)
In the meantime, Craig graduated from college! Congratulations to him
— I know that it has been a lot of hard work
these past four years.
I went to the graduation ceremony armed with my trusty camera but it let me
down. Even though I charged the battery the day before, it died after
taking only the two (not very good) shots shown here. One charge too many
I suppose.
Carl was there and took a lot more photos; I will post some of them here when I
get them.
May 10, 2009
An honest answer can get you into a lot of trouble.
Thunderbirds are go!
We got our business license!!! Finally! It took three months.
More later...
May 5, 2009
Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.
Still waiting for the goddamn business license!!!!!!!
Grrrrr!!!!!!!
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for
bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.
April 8, 2009
Grass growing from sidewalk cracks never turns brown.
 I looked out of
my front window and saw at least six deer standing there. I ran and
grabbed my camera but half of them had already taken off. I just managed
to snap this picture before the rest of them ran off too. The photo didn't
come out too good because there is a bug screen on the window but you can just
make out three deer.
You can also see the damage to one of my willow trees from the ice storm last
year. I have another willow tree that is in even worse shape and several
other trees that need attention. There is much spring cleaning to do.
Most of the snow has gone now but we still have a few patches left where it was
very deep or is in the shade. The birds are starting to come back and I am
getting the feeders and nesting boxes ready. This to me is the start of
the new year, not January. And it looks like it will be an interesting
year too. After many weeks of silence, there has been a sudden flurry of
activity on the business license front!
Before you can get a license, you have to have everything set up and ready to go
— office, phone, website, insurance, forms,
brochures, bank accounts, payment of state fees, you name it. It is an
expensive proposition with no guarantee of getting the license. Last week
we heard that the application and all the business forms were accepted without
any problems. Then we had an office inspection and that went well too.
Then came the big one. We had to go for a hearing! Wearing our best
business disguises, we traipsed into Boston yesterday for a somewhat
nerve-racking appearance before government officials. The security at
those government buildings is like that at an airport. We had to put our
coats and bags through x-ray machines, walk through metal detectors and then
have a manual scan with a wand. At least we were allowed to keep our shoes
on.
Details of the application had been posted in the local newspaper, other local
businesses had been notified and objections to the application were requested.
There were no challenges.
We had to swear an oath that we telling the truth and they recorded the hearing.
They interviewed us together and they interviewed us separately with the other
having to leave the room. At the end of the meeting, and after a lot of
questions, the hearing officer said that he was going to recommend that we get
our license! Phew!
There shouldn't be any reason now why we would not get the
license — but we still have to wait and see.
March 17, 2009
BEER — so much more than a breakfast beverage!
There are many good reasons for drinking,
One has just entered my head.
If a man doesn't drink when he's living,
How in the hell can he drink when he's dead?
 March came in like the
proverbial lion and dumped a foot of snow on New Boston. A week later, it dumped
another 8" on us. We have had some relatively mild weather recently and it looks
like March may go out like a lamb. Spring begins on Friday too!
Winter definitely outstayed its welcome (as it usually does). This year could
also be considered the Winter of Discontent. The economy has gone down the
toilet, companies are going out business, hundreds of thousands of people are
losing their jobs every month, and the housing market and stock market have both
collapsed, eroding people's savings. It's a perfect storm that just about
guarantees that a great many of us baby boomers have no hope of retirement.
People are lucky if they still have a job.
 Carol and I have spent
the past three months working on Plan B. What is Plan B you say?
Good question but all cannot be revealed at this point. Loose lips sink
ships and all that stuff.
I can tell you that even as the walls come crashing down all around us, we are
trying to start a business! Go figure. It is an ambitious project but one that
we believe holds great opportunity. We are currently bogged down in the endless
quagmire that is state government. We are playing hurry-up-and-wait with an
impenetrable,
faceless bureaucratic morass waiting to get our business license. It
has been 6 weeks so far. Stay tuned for more information.
There is a lot of work to be done and we have spent most of our free time doing
just that. But we took a break last weekend and went out to Boston's North End,
which is famous for its Italian restaurants and pastry shops. It was our
anniversary! We went to the same place a year ago. Wow
- a whole year! It was crowded, a veritable
zoo with not even a hint of a recession.
Some say the mob is still active here. I don't know
but I found it interesting when we encountered a
street musician playing the theme from the Godfather on an accordion.
Here are some photos:
 We decided to
take the T (that's like the Tube). In order to do this, one now needs
something called a Charlie Card! Who knew? What is a Charlie Card?
How does it work? And who was Charlie anyway?
It turns out that Charlie was a character in an old song written to protest a 5
cent fare increase on the T. In those days you paid your fare on exiting the
station. Apparently he did not have enough money on him and was not allowed
to get off the train. He was forced to ride the T forever.
 Finally figured it out.
Charlie card in hand. 
 Outside two of Boston's
famous landmarks - the bridge and the "Garden". Not too much snow down
there.
 Paul Revere. The
British are coming! The British are coming! They are still here.
 Street performers outside
Faneuil Hall. That blur over the people bending over is a guy
somersaulting over them. We came back later and they were still at it and
doing break dancing too. I wish I had half their energy.
 Faneuil Hall after dark.
 A famous pastry
shop. Presidential candidates like to pop in here for photo opportunities.
People were lining up out the door. We went in and while there, a guy proposed
to his girlfriend by presenting her with a big cake with "Will you marry me?"
written on it. She said yes and big cheer let out from the customers.
I guess those two must really like their pastries.
 Haymarket. They have a food
market there and leave behind an incredible mess. There was a bulldozer just
around the corner scooping it all up into a huge mountain of trash.
February 10, 2009
Don't make me use UPPERCASE!
 My
old Internet service provider, Bloody Verizon,
sold part of their business to my new ISP, Bloody
FairPoint! In so doing, they changed my email address,
giving me just 3 days' warning! The only reason I stuck with
Bloody Verizon was to avoid the grief
that comes with changing an email address in about a million places. I have wasted a lot of time on this.
Life is too short to be changing email addresses.
They messed up a lot of other people too, who have not been getting their email,
and have received quite a bit flak for it in the local media. Justifiably
so. They claimed that they didn't know the impact this change would have
or how many people would be affected! Just exactly what did they think
would happen? Do they know how many subscribers they have? Do they
know people want to get their email?
Anyway, my new email address is
I don't like the new address much. It sounds too much like My Fair Lady.
mike stanley, michael stanley, wrexham, grove park, consultant, c#, .net, sql server
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